First Contact – Part 22 – United Methodist

The first time I remember going to a United Methodist Church was in the mid 1980’s. A young female cooperative student at work—also the daughter of a friend and coworker—invited me to her church across the river in Tuscumbia. It wasn’t a Sunday morning service, but rather a Christmas program. Her sister was going to be performing, so my wife and I decided to attend. It was a good show, and we enjoyed it.

My next time in a United Methodist Church was for a wedding. A daughter of some good friends in the Church of Christ was having her wedding at the First United Methodist Church in Florence. She wanted my friend Ron and me to videotape it. At that time Ron and I shared duties in the sound booth at Chisholm Hills Church of Christ. We were happy to oblige, so we set up a couple of video cameras and microphones at the church and recorded the wedding.

It would not be until 1993 that I would attend an actual worship service at a UM church, and the story behind that visit is quite interesting. Kathy and I were members at the Chisholm Hills Church of Christ (CHCC). Our preacher was Joe VanDyke. In the early 1990’s Joe began to occasionally speak about other denominations in a more positive light than usual. He talked about how as a child his family would visit churches of other denominations when they were having revivals and such. While many in the Church of Christ believed that they were the only ones interpreting the Scriptures correctly and thus the only ones going to heaven, Joe began questioning that belief. This was fine by my wife and me since we had never believed we had a lock on the truth anyway. Joe spoke this way so frequently that I just assumed the elders of the church were on board with him. However, one Wednesday evening I found out differently. The elders fired Joe. I was out of town with my job and found out about it from my wife on the phone. I was shocked.

Apparently the elders were not very forthcoming about the reason for the firing, asking the congregation to just trust them. At Joe’s request they did tell everyone it was not over an issue of morality. But other than that no other information was put forth. This did not set well with many of the congregants. Eventually a Sunday afternoon meeting was held to hopefully clear the air, but it still left many dissatisfied. Interestingly, Joe and his family continued to attend CHCC. I asked him one day why he was still coming there given he was fired. He answered, “Where else am I going to go?” In other words, this congregation had been his home for many years. Where else would be a better fit?

Over time the dissatisfaction with the situation increased. A meeting was held at one of the church members’ home. The house was overflowing with people, my wife and I being two of them. We all pretty much agreed that the elders should have been more open with us about the firing so we could decide for ourselves whether or not the right decision had been made. But as it was, we simply did not have enough information to make that judgment. Ultimately the dissenting group decided to have a separate worship service one Sunday. It was held in the Magnolia Room at a local hotel. Joe VanDyke was invited to speak at that service. Long story short, we ultimately decided to break away from CHCC and form a new congregation. Members were asked to submit their suggestions for the new congregation’s name. Someone suggested Magnolia Church of Christ (MCC) since our first meeting had been in the Magnolia Room at the hotel. That was the one selected. Joe was hired as the preacher.

We knew we couldn’t stay in the hotel forever, so we later made arrangements to start meeting at the Little Angel Day School building. This school was just a short distance from North Wood United Methodist Church (NWUMC). The school had limited parking, so NWUMC graciously offered to let us use their parking lot for overflow. Now having a connection with NWUMC, our churches eventually planned a joint service. It had to be held at NWUMC’s building for space reasons.

The big event took place on the evening of September 19, 1993. MCC members converged along with NWUMC members to participate in the joint service. Some of the music that evening had instruments, some didn’t. Our local newspaper called it a historic event. But to me it just seemed like people trying to get along. At one point during the service I had to use the restroom. When I emerged from the sanctuary I noticed a good friend that had stayed with CHCC after the split. Apparently he was there “spying” on the meeting so he could report back to his church. I found it a bit amusing. As it turned out, this friend became ashamed of what he had done and now regrets ever having done it.

Our historic meeting sent shock waves throughout the Church of Christ community. MCC was being chastised in a number of publications. Several local congregations even took out a full page ad in our local newspaper to let people know that they did not approve of MCC’s actions. I found a couple of lingering writings about the evening on the Internet: Truth Magazine and Seek The Old Paths. There are probably more.

Later MCC found an old building in downtown Florence to meet at. Lots of renovations had to be done first. Once settled, MCC invited NWUMC to a joint service at our building. This ultimately led to having alternating annual joint meetings on the anniversary of that first joint meeting.

By the time of the CHCC split, I had already declared myself an agnostic although most people didn’t know it. Given Joe VanDyke’s willingness to take heat over his “liberal” position regarding people in other denominations, I decided I needed to confide in him about my deconversion. I set up a meeting with him one Sunday afternoon at his home. I explained to him my newfound beliefs and how I came about acquiring them. He was a bit surprised and of course didn’t agree with me. But he remained cordial throughout our conversation.

The only other times I have attended a United Methodist Church was for those joint services with NWUMC. That wasn’t very often since it was just a few years later that my wife began going to a Baptist Church and I followed along as I reported in my previous post.

The CHCC split and the supposed falling away of MCC by meeting with the NWUMC was my first major exposure to how divisive religion can be. Of course, I was viewing the events as an outsider, but from within. I was already an agnostic, but I was still involved with the church. It reminded me of a line spoken by Deanna Troi in a 1989 episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” entitled “Who Watches the Watchers”. She says, “Are you sure you know what he wants? That's the problem with believing in a supernatural being - trying to determine what he wants.”

Throughout the world there are people with widely varying beliefs. Many think that they are right and others are wrong. Even within the same religion, say Christianity, many different beliefs about God, the Bible, Jesus, and so forth are prevalent. Hey, even within a single church building you can find people who disagree about what is pleasing to God and what is not. If you have to be exactly right about everything in order for God to save you, then I would say that at most one person will make it, but more likely none. The way I look at it is this. We have all been put here on this Earth through no choice of our own. We have a limited time to live in our fallible human bodies. We’re all trying to make sense of our situation. How we got here. What our purpose is. Where we are headed. How we should live, and why. Given our differences in DNA, personal experiences, and learning backgrounds, it seems highly unlikely that there will ever be widespread agreement on these matters. We need to grant each other a lot of leeway in our search. And as long as others are not using force to impede our search, we should follow Idina’s and Demi’s recommendation: “Let It Go!”

First Contact – Part 14 – Christian Church

Back in the 19^th century a new church movement began. Two independent groups decided that Christ’s church should be united rather than divided. They sought to be known only as Christians. Not Baptists. Not Presbyterians. Not even Protestants. Just Christians. The movement came to be known as the Restoration Movement since it sought to restore the church as it was in the first century. One of the two movements originated with Barton Stone in Kentucky. The other originated with Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander in what is now West Virginia. Over time the attempted unification failed and the movement ended up splitting into three major groups: Church of Christ, Christian Church, and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I discussed the Church of Christ in my first post in this series. I will now discuss the Christian Church. In the next post I will discuss the Disciples of Christ.

My wife Kathy was raised in the United Church of Christ, which, by the way, is not related to the Church of Christ. However, when she went off to college she found a new church home in the Christian Church. She joined a Christian Church affiliated student fellowship called His House and began attending the Christian Church. When she moved back home to start her teaching career, she found a nearby Christian Church to attend. That is where she was attending when she and I started dating.

Kathy and I first became acquainted during our senior year in high school. We had a couple of classes together as well as study hall. I developed a crush on her, but was way too shy in those days to do anything about it. She went off to Murray State University to get her Master’s degree so she could teach math. I stayed at home and went to the University of Louisville to get my Master’s degree so I could be a chemical engineer. As I mentioned in my first post in this series, it was after I started my career in Alabama that I became a Christian. I was a member of the Church of Christ.

In early 1981, I was home visiting my parents. A good friend who grew up just down the street from me asked if I would like to go to church with him. He went to a Christian Church. He informed me that Anita went to church there also. My wife’s name is Anita Kathleen. In high school everyone knew her as Anita, but she dropped that name in college since all her family called her Kathy, and she was tired of being known by two different names. Anyway, I knew that the Christian Church used instrumental music and had other differences from the Church of Christ, but I was not as strict about such things as others were. So I attended the Christian Church with my friend. This was the first time since high school that I had seen Kathy. It was in Sunday School that I realized that I still had feelings for her. However, I was dating someone else in Alabama at the time.

In October 1981, I was once again in Louisville, but this time I was not dating anyone. I called Kathy up and asked her to go to dinner and see a performance of the Louisville Symphony Orchestra. She accepted. We had a great time together on that date. Thus began what some would call a whirlwind romance. It started with letters, then phone calls, then visits. Keep in mind that we lived 300 miles apart, so visiting was not easy. Also, in those days long distance phone calls were expensive. So we were racking up monthly phone bills in the hundreds of dollars.

When we would get together, one of the things we would discuss was our Christian beliefs. We both knew our relationship was getting serious, and we wanted to make sure that our beliefs were close enough to not cause us problems down the road. She knew I had no problem with the Christian Church since I had been going there when in Louisville. When she visited me, she attended the Church of Christ where I was a member. There was no Christian Church anywhere near where I lived, so that was not an option.

Both the Church of Christ and the Christian Church had a code they lived by: Speak where the Bible speaks, and be silent where the Bible is silent. It bugged me that both churches believed this statement, yet somehow came to different conclusions on some matters. Upon analyzing it for a while, I finally realized why there were differences. The first part of the code, speak where the Bible speaks, caused no problems. If the Bible said to do something, both churches did it. If the Bible said to refrain from something, both churches refrained. It was the second part of the code, be silent where the Bible is silent, that was causing the conflict. You see, the Church of Christ took being silent about something as being the same as refraining from it. The Christian Church took being silent about something as meaning that God didn’t care one way or the other. This difference made for some interesting discussions.

The New Testament says we should sing to God as part of our worship, but it is silent about musical instruments. Therefore, the Church of Christ refrains from using instruments in worship as its way of being silent on the matter. The Christian Church believes you can use instruments or not since God is silent and thus doesn’t care. There were a number of other differences that stemmed from these differing interpretations of what being silent on an issue means. Personally, I came down on the side of the Christian Church even though I could argue either position. In fact, I was so familiar with differing doctrines I could argue either side of a lot of issues.

As I said, Kathy's and my romance went quickly. Just four months after our first date, on Valentine’s Day 1982, I asked Kathy to marry me. She said yes, and we were soon in discussions with her mom about what date and venue to choose. Ultimately, we decided on July 3, 1982. That allowed Kathy to finish teaching for the school year, and it was around a holiday, thus allowing more people from out of town to attend. As for venue, we decided to wed at Kathy’s church. It was to be officiated by both the preacher from her church and the campus minister of His House at Murray State University.

After marrying, Kathy and I began studying the Bible together at home on a regular basis. We started in Genesis and planned to work our way through Revelation. But plans have a way of being disrupted. There were a number of passages in Genesis that bugged me. I had questions that neither Kathy nor the Bible could answer. I began discussing these issues with our preacher, elders, and deacons. I soon found that they did not have any answers either. At least not any acceptable answers. Many times the answer was, “Sometimes you just have to have faith.” But I knew that oftentimes people had faith in things that were untrue. I needed evidence to distinguish between truth and untruth. In too many cases, that evidence was not forthcoming. So, Kathy’s and my Bible study fell by the wayside.

About five years into our marriage, I found myself rejecting the Bible as being God’s Word. This was something Kathy and I had never even considered before we got married. We had discussed our differences in religious beliefs, which were minimal. But never did we consider the possibility of one of us rejecting those beliefs sometime down the road. It was a difficult time. But ultimately, our love for each other won the day. Our love was able bridge even the gap between an agnostic and a Christian.

In 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a, the Apostle Paul says this about love:

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

Hey, I believe Paul was on to something here. Five years into our marriage, Kathy and I faced what some might call a crisis. My beliefs were diverging from hers. In fact, had I had my new beliefs before we wed, we most likely would not have gotten married. Yet there we were; married and believing differently. But as Paul says, “Love never fails.” It certainly didn’t fail us, but it required us to latch onto it and not let it loose.

I look back on this now with wonderment. It almost seemed like a supernatural intervention occurred. I became a Christian just long enough for Kathy and me to fall in love and get married. I became a Christian in 1980. We started dating in 1981. We married in 1982. I began doubting the Bible soon after. I became a nonbeliever in 1987. Could it be that God, or fate, or something else, wanted Kathy and me to be together, so arranged the circumstances just long enough for that to happen? I don’t really know, but it’s something to think about.

So, after over 32 years of marriage, Kathy and I love each other more than ever. I am reminded of the 1969 Spiral Starecase hit song “More Today Than Yesterday.” The lyrics say, “I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow.” It’s a great song. Yet, there are many who believe that Kathy will go to heaven, and I will go to hell. To me, that is saying that love is more powerful in this life than in the next. Yet, God is supposed to BE love. Is he incapable of loving me at least as much as Kathy does? Why would he deny our love in the afterlife? And why would this denial be based on sincerely held differences in beliefs rather than our actions? It makes no sense to me.

First Contact – Part 1 – Church of Christ

Since it’s the holiday season and a time of the year where quite a few religious people celebrate, I have been thinking about interesting first encounters with religious groups. I thought I would share some of the best stories with you. Keep in mind that I may have had earlier contact with people of these faiths, but not in a religious context.

I wasn’t raised going to church much, but when I did attend it was Baptist churches. So, my first religious encounter with a Church of Christ member was in college. Mark was a friend in high school, but we never really discussed religion until we started college. I can remember one day standing in the school parking lot discussing the book of Revelation. Mark did not believe that the tribulation, rapture, thousand year reign, lake of fire, etc were actually going to happen. At that time in my life, this was foreign thinking. The Baptist churches I had attended and the evangelists I had listened to on TV all taught that they would actually happen.

So, I asked Mark, “Well, if the book doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means, then what does it mean?”

Mark replied, “You have to first understand that some parts of the Bible are literal and other parts are figurative.”

I inquired, “Okay, so how do you tell the difference?”

Mark said, “Well, that which is literal is literal and that which is figurative is figurative.”

I was dumbfounded. What he said was obviously true, a tautology in fact, but it helped not one bit in making a determination about literalness or figurativeness. There had to be something more definitive. Yet, we kept going around and around and never really understanding each other. This did not leave a very good impression on me of the Church of Christ. And to make it even worse, Mark’s preacher had a regular radio program which I began to occasionally listen to after my conversation with Mark. One day the preacher started talking about how some things in the Bible were literal and some were figurative. “How do you tell the difference?” he asked the audience. His answer: “That which is literal is literal and that which is figurative is figurative.” Oh, boy! Well, at least I now knew where Mark had gotten that phrase from.

Interestingly, after I graduated from college and took a full time job in Alabama, I made some new friends. They invited me to church, and I went. Lo and behold, it was a Church of Christ. I was a bit hesitant, but decided to give it a chance. Over time I began to understand how they actually distinguished literal parts of Bible from the figurative parts. I began studying with a teacher, Jim Massey, at a local Church of Christ college every Sunday evening. Jim was a man of many hats in the church. He was a minister, evangelist, teacher, missionary, author, and more. I was very impressed by the logical manner in which he approached the Biblical text and how he attempted to look at the Bible as a whole when determining doctrine. I eventually joined the church, and Jim baptized me.

Shortly afterwards, I was back home visiting my parents in Kentucky, so I decided to give Mark a call and tell him the good news. (Note that the conversation may not have been exactly as I quote below, but the gist is accurate.)

“Hey, Mark. Guess what.”

“What?”

“I joined the church.”

“Which church?”

“The Church of Christ.”

I was ready for his excitement to burst forth.

“Okay. Let me ask you a few questions.” Mark said.

Uh-oh, I thought. What’s up?

“Do you have a kitchen in the church building and eat in the church building?”

Oh, no. I had learned enough about the Church of Christ in the short time I had been a member to know that there were a number of divisions in it with differing beliefs. One of the more conservative wings was known by the group I had joined as the “anti brethren”. Not in the sense that they were not our brethren, but in the sense that they were opposed to more things than we were.

I responded, “Yes we do.”

Several more expected questions followed. I finally said, “Okay, you are apparently in the group we call the anti brethren.”

“Yes, I am,” he said.

So, after getting past my initial impression of the Church of Christ and then actually joining it, I was still not in the right group according to Mark. I guessed I was still bound for hell; I just didn’t know it. I wondered how many other people were in my situation. After all, if you believe you are right with God, but really aren’t, you don’t even know to seek out an alternative.

Oh, well.

Before I close, I would like to relate an interesting story about Jim Massey. He was known for being open minded. If he ever became convinced he was wrong about a Biblical issue, he was not above admitting his error and changing his position on the matter. In fact, in one of the classes I took from him he admitted that his position on a particular doctrine, after studying the issue in more detail, had changed since he taught the class the previous year. This impressed me.

Anyway, shortly after Jim baptized me, I had been studying the issue of drinking alcohol and had come to the inevitable conclusion that the Bible taught that drinking was not a sin, only drinking to excess. Somehow word got back to Jim. He caught me one day and asked me if I indeed believed drinking was okay. I said I did. In fact, I told him, the wine used for the Lord’s Supper was obviously alcoholic. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul chastised the believers for misusing the Lord’s Supper by getting drunk. Jim told me that the Greek word used there meant to be full, not drunk. I asked then why the translators translated it as drunk. He asked me to come to his office with me. Jim knew Greek and always carried a Greek New Testament with him to church. He pulled this out, went to the passage I was referring to and showed me the Greek word. Then he pulled out his Greek dictionary and looked that word up. I asked him what it said. He responded, “to be drunk.” After a pause, he said, “I’ll have to study this some more.” I never heard back from him on what he concluded from this study, but I always admired him for not trying to weasel out his dilemma, but rather used it as an opportunity to come to a deeper understanding of Scripture.

As for me, I was also open minded and willing to change my beliefs. After studying the Bible in more detail over the next several years, I ultimately concluded that many of the “facts” in the Bible could not be substantiated. I was therefore compelled to leave the church. I discuss all this in detail in my book God Is: Exploring the Nature of the Biblical God. It can be purchased in paperback or Kindle format at Amazon.

I'm Going To Hell

Many years ago, when I was a mere teenager, an uncle of mine said to me, “I’m going to hell.” Being a bit stunned, I asked, “Why do you think that?” He said, “Because everyone knows the Bible is true. I don’t live by it, so I’ll be going to hell.” I queried, “If you really believe that, then why don’t you live by it?” He responded, “Because I don’t want to.”

This uncle was considered by many to be the black sheep of the family, living a pretty wild lifestyle. He was also known to take a provocative position on issues just to stir up emotions and drive a conversation. So, even though he seemed sincere with his statements concerning going to hell, I cannot be sure he really believed it. After all, why would anyone deliberately live in such a way as to end up in eternal torment?

Back in 1980, when I came to believe the Bible, I converted to Christianity. I certainly did not want to be tormented day and night forever and ever. Yet, when I told the good news to a friend of mine that I had discussed the Bible with frequently, I was not met with joy. Rather, I was confronted with a number of questions about what the church I joined believed in. After several questions, I realized that my friend was from an even more conservative wing of the Church of Christ than the one I joined. God forbid I had become a Baptist or a Methodist. Anyway, the bottom line was that apparently the beliefs I had adopted concerning the Bible weren’t totally correct. I still had a few doctrinal issues wrong, so I guessed I was still bound for hell.

This was my first remembered brush with Christian judgmentalism. By this I mean a person being judged unworthy of God’s salvation even though he himself believes he has done all God has told him to do to be worthy. It is quite disconcerting.

Over time I discovered that there were people claiming to be Christians that ranged from very liberal to very conservative. On the very liberal end of the spectrum were those who believed in universal salvation. Everyone would be saved in the end. On the very conservative end of the spectrum were those who believed that a person needed to have their doctrine 100% correct and live according to it perfectly to be saved. And, of course, there was a wide range of beliefs in between these extremes. I began to visualize this range of beliefs as being embodied in individuals standing next to each other in a long chorus-like line. Each person is turned toward the person on their more liberal side pleading with him to just give up his more liberal views in order for the two to be in fellowship. Of course, he is totally ignoring similar pleas from the person on his more conservative side directed at him.

These disparities in people’s thinking about whom God will save and whom he won’t made me curious about who thought I wasn’t saved. Whenever I would get into a discussion with someone of a Christian faith different from mine, I liked to ask if they thought I was going to hell. I recall one time when I engaged a Mormon acquaintance in a discussion. After a bit I asked, “So, what do you think will happen to me in eternity?” He hem hawed around as I continued to press for an answer. Finally I said, “Look, you won’t hurt my feelings whatever you believe. After all, it won’t be you judging me anyway.” Still I got no straight answer to my question. I had to assume that if he thought I was going to heaven, he would have been happy to say so. Therefore, I guessed he didn’t think I would fair well.

About seven years after becoming a Christian, I de-converted when I became convinced that the Bible was not the word of God. Then it became really interesting asking people where they thought I would spend eternity. Since the Church of Christ generally believes that one can lose his salvation if he falls away from his faith, the answer from them was obvious: “You’re going to hell.” But from other groups, such as Baptists, it was more interesting. Baptists generally believe that once a person becomes saved there is no way for them to become unsaved. So, opinions from Baptists tend to vary. Some think that I am still saved even though I don’t believe the necessary things to be saved. Others think that I was never saved to begin with, which is kind of odd when you think about it. That means that even though I actually had faith in Jesus and confessed and was baptized, I was still bound for hell even though I wasn't aware of that fact. If that is possible, could it be that some of those Baptists who thought I was never saved were themselves never saved. I’ll leave that one for National Enquirer to sort out.

In the mist of all this confusion, I do have a bit of good news, especially for those that are outside God’s favor, knowingly or unknowingly. If the Bible is true, don’t fear. Contrary to what I always believed about it, the Bible does not teach that the unsaved will be tormented forever and ever. Rather it teaches they will be annihilated, never to exist again. I discovered this when I was conducting research for my latest book, “God Is: Exploring the Nature of the Biblical God”. I would love for you to give my book a read and let me know what you think about it.